Monday, September 3, 2012

How To Tell If It's a Lie: Arctic Sea Ice

The last five or so years have provided a useful case study
in lying and how to see through the lies – useful in assessing products, in
assessing strategies, and in reassessing one’s national and global views that
affect how we all act in business and out of it. I am referring to the
fascinating case of following the ups and downs of Arctic sea ice.

What does this have to do with lying in daily life? We’ll see.

Setting the Stage

Starting in the late 1960s, scientists began to establish
that climate – the overall patterns of temperature, wind, and precipitation at
various points on the globe within which weather fluctuates – was being
affected by carbon in the atmosphere, and the data began to suggest that human
carbon emissions were a major if not the primary cause of this change.

In reaction, self-called “skeptics” began to deny the role
of humans in climate change. Over time, these became known as “climate change
deniers” or “climate deniers” for short.

One of the key areas of focus of both climate scientists and
deniers has been Arctic sea ice. Climate change science predicts that Arctic
sea ice will melt due to human-caused climate change, first to almost nothing
at minimum in September, and eventually year-round. Satellite and buoy data
available beginning in 1979 has kept track of the area and extent (that is,
area including cells with both open water and ice). A model supplemented by
sampling has estimated volume (including the depth of the ice), and this year
for the first time a good method of measuring volume has supplemented the
model.

The reason that Arctic sea ice is of such fascination is
that it is the equivalent of a “canary in a coal mine.” Like the canaries that
coal miners carried with them whose sickness and death were a first warning of
bad air in the mine, Arctic sea ice tells just how imminent major human-cause
climate change is, and how quickly it is proceeding – and it is one of the
first really visible signs of major change.

However, until very late in the process of melting, Arctic
sea ice diminution is not very visible. What we see on the surface is the area
and extent, and the ice is being melted on the top, bottom, and sides every
year, and then in winter it is being frozen again. In essence, Arctic sea ice
is more or less like a giant thin ice cube floating in the Arctic Ocean, with
wind and currents constantly pushing ice out of the ocean to melt at one end
and new ice forming at the other end. As a result, volume may drop steadily
year after year, and only in September of one year late in the process (when
the ice becomes too thin at minimum) do we see major drops in area and extent.

The Lie

The basic lie of the climate denier is that there is no such
thing as human-caused global warming. Behind that lie is a psychological
message: You (the listener) need not be
forced to do anything about it, or even think about it, except as an amusing
hobby. Those who insist are “them”, and
they are trying to bother “us” for selfish purposes. Stand guard against “them”,
and do not be fooled.

Behind that lie is an endless series of “fall-back
positions.” Global climate change is not occurring. It is not human-caused, but
caused by many other factors. The data on each bit of evidence is wrong, or not
to be trusted, because it comes from “them.” And each argument visibly and
clearly refuted simply means that the denier stops talking about that argument
and focuses on the next one, while preserving the basic lie.

In politics, there is a final fall-back position, in which
the politician pretends that he or she never was a proponent of the lie in the
first place. However, the psychological message remains: Yes, I agree with human-cause climate change
whole-heartedly and always have (!), but it’s no big deal. Let’s do as little
as possible, as slowly as possible, because the methods of dealing with it are
the ones being pushed by “them,” for their own selfish purposes.

Politics is particularly relevant here, because in this case
governments fund data collection. The less data collected, the less easily the
lie is exposed. The corresponding case in business is the collection of
customer and accounting data. The “power center” in the company has a vested
interest in saying that present strategies and tactics are not wrong-headed. In
many cases, it can be difficult to tell the source of failure. There is, for
example, the reported case of the performance-testing team that reported a slow
software product, to the point of likely major customer dissatisfaction – the person
in charge simply fired the team, and blame for the resulting poor sales was
passed to his successor.

So the denier alleges initially that there is no change in
Arctic sea ice that is not accounted for by “natural variability.” He or she
drops or alters arguments to suit over the years as data comes in. And each new
or continuing listener, safe in the cocoon of the lie, moves ever further into
delusion.

The Lie Exposed

Perhaps the foremost exponent of the Arctic sea ice variant
of the lie is Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat – although Andrew Revkin of the
NY Times in his blog has apparently persistently played a subtler denier role.
Over the last 2-3 years I have followed at a distance the evolution of their
arguments as the data on Arctic sea ice continues to come in. However, as we
will see, the fallout from 30 and more years of previous lies has also affected
what happens as the lie gets exposed.

Let’s start with an odd event: Al Gore a little over 2 years
ago embracing some scientific predictions that Arctic sea ice would go to near
zero by about 2016. Now, I know that some people reading this will immediately
want to stop reading, because they have an image of Al Gore as an untrustworthy
politician. Unfortunately for that preconception, there is ample testimony from
climate scientists that Gore has taken great pains to understand climate
science better, and is therefore to an astonishing degree reasonably close to representing
fairly the scientific findings and what they mean. To put it bluntly: whatever
you think of Al Gore in other areas, he is not a typical politician in this
area, and therefore your mistrust is just plain wrong.

Gore’s remark was immediately seized on as yet another proof
of the ludicrousness of climate change predictions in general and Arctic sea
ice ones in particular. In 2007, there had been some concern among a few, as,
aided by a confluence of weather factors, Arctic sea ice area and extent had
fallen to a new low (since 1979) in early September. However, due to the
absence of these weather factors, area and extent at minimum had rebounded
somewhat in 2008 and 2009, and deniers pointed to these numbers and asked how
one could possibly believe that it would all be gone in five years. Loosed by
Watts and his ilk, “trolls” haunted serious or denial-countering sites jeering
at those who, like Neven (see one of my previous blog posts), were attempting
to follow the clear thread of the data.

A particular focus of their ire was the use of a “speculative”
volume model – clearly, not in anyone’s scientific mainstream. The fact that
the model had been refined and checked by physical sampling was of no
relevance, nor did deniers raise the point that, if accurate, it was a better
measure of what was going on.

And then, in September of 2010, area and extent turned
downward again – and volume took a major plunge. None of that was reflected in
Watts – it was just part of “natural variability.” By September of 2011, area
and extent had reached close to their 2007 lows, and volume continued to
decrease, while the only semi-troll on the Neven site tried to argue that even
if other areas melted, the Central Arctic Basin would take a long time to do
so, if ever.

By this time, a little sporting competition had developed,
with scientific models and enthusiastic amateurs filing their predictions for
this year’s minimum area and extent. In 2012, Watts finally abandoned his
perennial prediction that these would move back to pre-2007 – but he was still
on the high side, with a 4.7 mkm2 extent prediction. And, of course, there was
no indication in his blog that he was wrong in the slightest, or that there was
anything amiss.

And now here we are at the beginning of September, and all
previous records have been easily shattered. Extent is at 3.67 mkm2, and
probably will wind up below 3.5 mkm2. Area is already almost 20% below 2011 and
2007, and probably will wind up at 20% below. Volume is already 10% below 2011,
and will probably wind up 15%-20% below. The Central Arctic Basin is already
easily at a record low. And weather conditions have not been favorable for records
at all.

So what has Watts said and done? At first, Watts kept
pointing to the records that had not yet been broken. Then, he resorted to
comparing the largest measure of extent in 2012 to one of the smallest measures
in 2007. And now, apparently, he has ascribed this year to, in one commentator’s
pithy phrase, “natural unnatural variability” – the argument that this is a
once in heaven-knows-how-many-years occurrence. Other, that is, than not
talking about it at all. Neven at one point posted a comment on Watt’s blog
saying, sarcastically, “Hey, there’s nothing going on with Arctic sea ice,
right?” and Watts’ only response was to dismiss him as a troll.

When a Lie Is Exposed and No One Notices

But it has been the reaction of most of the world that makes
it very clear how much most of us have been affected by the lie. Since shortly
after the beginning of August, the Neven web site and Joe Romm at www.climateprogress.com have been
telling us this was coming and how serious it is. In fact, since at least 2010,
both have been telling us how serious the situation was. And so what was the
reaction of the world?

Well, in the US, I can find no major publication – or even
minor one – pointing out this was coming. When the records actually fell,
pretty much all in one week, a week before the end of August, no major
publication reported it for until the very end of August, more than a week
later than most of the record-setting.
Of those that have – Bloomberg BusinessWeek, NBC News, and US News and
World Report are a reasonable sample – none has come anywhere near
understanding the magnitude of the loss, nor the implications. Over the last
three years, only Joe Romm among major commentators has shown an appreciation
for the likelihood that this would happen. Only very recently did Paul Krugman
connect the dots between his reading of Joe and the implications for climate
change’s effect on the global economy. The rest of the news and commentary?
Just about nothing.

Meanwhile, in politics, only www.dailykos.com, a so-called “liberal” web
site (clearly, part of “them”) has paid this subject the attention it deserves,
and then only in the last half-month. We continue to see the spectacle of the
Republican party and the 46% of voters who support it denying that either
global warming or its human cause is settled science, and pledged to do even
less than is already being done to combat it. Abroad, the Australian Prime
Minister is threatened with being voted out of office primarily for having
pushed a clearly inadequate attempt to combat carbon emissions. Canada’s Harper
has persistently been quoted as believing that in the foreseeable future,
Arctic sea ice will not melt enough that shippers can bypass Canada’s Northwest
Passage. The powers that ring the Arctic Ocean are busy contemplating oil
drilling in the Arctic that would increase carbon emissions in future, and the
first vessels from Shell, an oil company, only failed to start exploration this
summer because they failed to ready themselves in time.

In other words, some form of belief in the lie is pervasive.
Either we believe that global warming isn’t happening, or that it isn’t
human-caused, or that Arctic sea ice has nothing to do with it, or that we don’t
need to do something about it, because it won’t happen or affect us in the near
future. And even when the data becomes overwhelming and visible in Arctic sea
ice, we don’t revisit or connect the dots.

How can this be? And how can we do better at detecting lies?

Doing Better

The first thing to notice about such lies is that they work
only if they become embedded in some way in “history.” Often, this happens when
the public notices an accusation but not its disproof, as witness the idea that
Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet, or John Kerry’s “swiftboating.” Or,
the lie simply becomes repeated long enough that those not paying attention
assume it’s true. To take a recent
example, the so-called Simpson-Bowles commission made no majority
recommendation at all – and yet, we hear politicians from both parties claiming
the contrary. A couple of years ago I was shocked, when attending a graduation,
to hear a prominent business/economics professor at Yale refer to 1933, “when
the Great Depression was starting.” Not only did this ignore the steady
unraveling since about the great stock market crash of 1929, complete with
starving veteran Bonus Marchers in Washington; it also ignored the ways in
which revered figures played a role, with America refusing to forgive any of
its WWI loans, Winston Churchill clinging disastrously to a gold standard,
Andrew Jackson’s deep-sixing of a National Bank leading to a series of severe
recessions of which this was only the latest, and the failure to regulate
separation of bank and investment company – hence the junking of those FDR
regulations, mainly by business and Republicans, in the late 1990s. I have
written about similar “false memories,” as I perceive them, in the computer
industry.

And so, the work of doing better begins with combating the
lack of accurate “institutional memory.” This should not be as difficult as it
sounds, in business as in politics, because the particular person who has
something to gain from a particular version of the lie has often moved on by
five years down the line. It is therefore important, even if it seems not so,
to bring back the truth if it has been distorted, and to keep the truth alive
in your mind. It is important to
remember.

But that, it seems to me, is only half the task. We may, at some times, be constantly
bombarded by these lies. Those who
surround themselves by a cocoon of lies create a worldview and invite you in –
and even if you do not enter, it is very hard to not always have second
thoughts or to begin to think the same way. There’s a marvelous Mark Twain joke
about the man who hated his neighbors and started a rumor there was gold in
Hell. A little while later a friend stopped by and saw him packing to go there
himself. Why? The neighbor asked. Well, the man said, I got to thinking there
must be something in that rumor.

However, lies are crafted, piece by piece, as needed, and
the contradictions and seams begin to show more and more as you examine them.
The truth, by contrast, hangs together – the loose ends are those that have not
yet been fully investigated. And this is particularly true of scientific truth –
which we call scientific theory. Your job, as laymen, is to look at the
information provided and ask, what’s the model? How does it cover everything?
What does it predict in these situations? And only then do you ask, are those
predictions near reality, as far as you can tell? For example, ask, what is a
free market? And only after that do you ask, does that make sense to you? Does
it really seem to capture what happens to you in your work? What more is needed?

And finally, I should add that we should be humble about
connecting the virtues and vices of the person with whether something is lies
or the truth. Yes, there’s a connection, as in the old joke that noted that
once a person first starts in to murder, eventually even Sabbath-breaking is
not beyond his capability for evil. But it’s not a simple connection. The
connection is more between the person’s ability to perceive reality and the
truth or between the person’s expertise and the subject at hand. Al Gore understands
climate science pretty well; but given a choice between his model and that of
James Hansen, I’ll start with Hansen first, even though Hansen’s politics is
alien to me.

It’s Just a Flesh Wound!

We laugh at the memorable Monty Python routine in which the
Black Knight, amputated in most limbs, refuses to recognize any problem and
demands that our hero continue fighting – “It’s just a flesh wound!” And that
is precisely what Anthony Watts, James Inhofe, and the like are saying today –
and will probably continue to say, in one form or another, indefinitely.

However, I must point out that in this, at least, I and many
more like me have been able, even as laymen, to see through the lie. And I did
it more or less as I described above: refused to accept the false implanted
memories of Al Gore, refused to buy into the assertions of “us” vs. “them”, and
took some time to put together a model in layman’s terms for Arctic sea ice and
global warming in general, based on reflection on scientific papers as much as
or more than assurances by folks such as Neven and Joe Romm. And so, for more
than two years, I have been saying that this time was coming sometime between
2012 and 2015, that volume would turn out to be the key metric, and that
decline was exponential, not linear. And we’ve been in the middle of the
plausible, not on the outer fringe, as denier interpretations of scientific
conservatism would have you believe. So maybe it’s time for you to consider
applying this either to global warming – which is about as important as it gets
– or to ideas like data virtualization or agile marketing.

And one more thing:
once you’ve handled the lie, one effective way of combating it going forward
is simply, whenever possible, to nail a specific version of it that’s clearly
false. Not in the denier’s cocoon;
outside, in blog comments where all are welcome, or in conversations where it
is permitted to say, that’s not true. It is amazing how that kind of modest but
powerful statement gets across to the persuadable, where ad hominem argument
obeys a kind of Gresham’s Law and makes the reader see all as indistinguishably
bad.

Watts may be mortal, but lies are much more durable. It is
one of our tasks, not to hope that all the big questions will not force us to
do something, but to make a good effort to perceive big lies, so that the truth
never quits, either. Because if the truth never quits, then there is some hope
that a big lie will be only a flesh wound. Rather than the cause of a massive
human disaster. Happy Labor Day.

1 comment:

I'm about 25% through Naomi Klein's book, Shock Doctrine and I'm afraid we're all the victims of a lie similar to the one used by the economic plunderers of the South American countries, that the pro- multinationals juntas were fighting communism. While people pay attention to stories about greedy scientists perpetrating an AWG hoax, the sea ice turns to slush and the permafrost puffs out kilometre-wide plumes of methane. According to Klein's thesis climate change is starting to provide a lucrative series of business opportunities (there are no problems, only Opportunities). It's convenient that people mostly choose to go with the easiest bits of 'news' to swallow – the average person I talk to will mumble something about 'natural cycles', because as long as anyone is saying it, then they can ignore stories about the unfolding set of disasters. It's telling that popular, serious novelists like Margaret Atwood, Richard Powers, and Jonathan Franzen are covering climate change in their narratives. But then, who reads any more?

Wayne Kernochan

About Me

I have recently retired. Before retirement, I was a long-time computer industry analyst at firms like Aberdeen Group and Yankee Group, and before that a programmer at Prime Computer and Computer Corp. of America. Sloan/MIT MBA, Cornell Computer Science Master's, and Harvard college degrees. Used to play the violin, and have written unpublished books about personal finance, violin playing, and the relationship between religion and mathematics, as well as three plays, two musicals, a screenplay on climate change, short stories, and poetry. I intend to use this blog in future both to continue to enjoy the computing field and to pursue my interests in many other areas (e.g., climate change, history, issues of the day).